Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

Chapters 11–12

Chapters 13–14, page 2

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Summary: Chapter 13

As winter thaws into spring, the monster notices that
the cottagers, particularly Felix, seem unhappy. A beautiful woman
in a dark dress and veil arrives at the cottage on horseback and
asks to see Felix. Felix becomes ecstatic the moment he sees her.
The woman, who does not speak the language of the cottagers, is
named Safie. She moves into the cottage, and the mood of the household
immediately brightens. As Safie learns the language of the cottagers,
so does the monster. He also learns to read, and, since Felix uses
Constantin-François de Volney’s Ruins of Empires to
instruct Safie, he learns a bit of world history in the process.
Now able to speak and understand the language perfectly, the monster
learns about human society by listening to the cottagers’ conversations.
Reflecting on his own situation, he realizes that he is deformed
and alone. “Was I then a monster,” he asks, “a blot upon the
earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?” He also
learns about the pleasures and obligations of the family and of
human relations in general, which deepens the agony of his own isolation.

Summary: Chapter 14

After some time, the monster’s constant eavesdropping
allows him to reconstruct the history of the cottagers. The old
man, De Lacey, was once an affluent and successful citizen in Paris;
his children, Agatha and Felix, were well-respected members of the
community. Safie’s father, a Turk, was falsely accused of a crime
and sentenced to death. Felix visited the Turk in prison and met
his daughter, with whom he immediately fell in love. Safie sent
Felix letters thanking him for his intention to help her father
and recounting the circumstances of her plight (the monster tells
Victor that he copied some of these letters and offers them as proof
that his tale is true). The letters relate that Safie’s mother was
a Christian Arab who had been enslaved by the Turks before marrying
her father. She inculcated in Safie an independence and intelligence
that Islam prevented Turkish women from cultivating. Safie was eager
to marry a European man and thereby escape the near-slavery that
awaited her in Turkey. Felix successfully coordinated her father’s
escape from prison, but when the plot was discovered, Felix, Agatha,
and De Lacey were exiled from France and stripped of their wealth.
They then moved into the cottage in Germany upon which the monster
has stumbled. Meanwhile, the Turk tried to force Safie to return
to Constantinople with him, but she managed to escape with some
money and the knowledge of Felix’s whereabouts.

Analysis: Chapters 13–14

The subplot of Safie and the cottagers adds yet another
set of voices to the novel. Their story is transmitted from the
cottagers to the monster, from the monster to Victor, from Victor
to Walton, and from Walton to his sister, at which point the reader
finally gains access to it. This layering of stories within stories
enables the reworking of familiar ideas in new contexts. One such
idea is the sense of “otherness” that many characters in Frankenstein feel.
The monster, whose solitude stems from being the only creature of
his kind in existence and from being shunned by humanity, senses
this quality of being different most powerfully. His deformity,
his ability to survive extreme conditions, and the grotesque circumstances
of his creation all serve to mark him as the ultimate outsider.
Victor, too, is an outsider, as his awful secret separates him from
friends, family, and the rest of society. In the subplot of the
cottagers, this idea recurs in the figures of both Safie and her
father. His otherness as a Muslim Turk in Paris results in a threat
to his life from the prejudiced and figures in power. Her feelings
of being oppressed by Islam’s confining gender roles compel her
to seek escape to the more egalitarian ideas of Christianity.

The monster’s fascination with the relationship between
Felix and Safie lies in his desperate desire for Victor to accept
him. Felix’s willingness to risk everything for the sake of someone
who has been unjustly punished gives the monster hope that Victor
will recognize the hurtful injustice of abandoning him. However,
just as Felix’s bravery in helping Safie’s father escape stands
in stark contrast to Victor’s shameful unwillingness to save Justine,
so does Felix’s compassion for Safie underscore Victor’s cold hatred
for the monster.

Language and communication take center stage in these
chapters, as the monster emerges from his infantile state and begins
to understand and produce written and spoken language. His alienation
from society, however, provides him no opportunity to communicate
with others; rather, he is a one-way conduit, a voyeur, absorbing
information from the cottagers without giving anything in return.
The importance of language as a means of self-expression manifests
itself in the monster’s encounter with Victor on the glacier. Just
as each distinct narrative voice contributes to the novel’s richly woven
web of allusions and biases, the monster’s romanticization of the
cottagers as kind and friendly reflects his desperate desire for companionship
and affection.

Texts play an important role throughout the novel, especially
in shaping the monster’s conception of his identity and place in
the world. As his language skills increase, the monster gains a
sense of the world through Felix’s reading of Ruins of Empires. In
these chapters, he acquires the ability to understand the crucial
texts that he soon discovers, including Paradise Lost. This
text introduces him to Adam and Satan, to both of whom he eventually
compares himself. In addition to shaping his identity, the written
word provides the monster with a means of legitimizing his past.
In offering to show Victor copies of Safie’s letters, he hopes to
validate his perspective on the tragedy that has befallen them and
thus gain Victor’s sympathy. His belief in the truth of the written
word, however, seems particularly naïve in a novel with a narrative
structure as complex as that of Frankenstein; just as he falsely
assumes that Paradise Lost is historically accurate,
he hopes groundlessly that his narrative can win Victor over.

The book doesn't specify if the monster was created by one man or several or how he was brought to life. I think we can safely guess that the monster was brought to life using electricity because it has such an influence on Victor. SPOILER ALERT. I would also say that is safe to say that the monster was probably created using more than one man because later on Victor tears apart/destroys the monster's companion before he completes her creation. These are just my thoughts and if anyone has anything else they would like to add please comment